ARMY. AS THE DIRECTOR OF THE ARMY CYBER INSTITUTE AT THE U.S. MILITARY
ACADEMY AT WEST POINT, CONTI HAS TO PREPARE THE NEXT GENERATION OF OFFICERS TO FIGHT A COMPLETELY NEW KIND OF WAR, A WAR WITHOUT BAYONETS,
BULLETS OR BOMBS BUT ONE THAT COULD POTENTIALLY BRING A POWERFUL
NATION TO ITS KNEES. A WEST POINT GRADUATE WHO FOUGHT IN THE PERSIAN
GULF WAR AND EARNED A PH.D. FROM GEORGIA TECH, CONTI WAS CALLED “THE
ULTIMATE CYBERWARRIOR” BY LT. GEN. RHETT HERNANDEZ, WHO WAS HEAD OF
THE ARMY CYBER COMMAND WHEN HE APPOINTED CONTI TO HIS CURRENT POST.
(HERNANDEZ IS NOW RETIRED.)

31

T

HOUGH

it hasn’t received the kind of
press attention that the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq have generated, those at the front
lines are clear that a global cyberwar is under way.
Though absent an attack on the scale of Pearl
Harbor, the cyberwar is being waged on a thousand
fronts by aggressive and unconventional enemies.
In 2013, for example, Chinese cyberspies reportedly stole plans for a number of U.S. military
weapons and vehicles, including the F-35 Joint
Strike Fighter jet, often characterized as the most
expensive weapons system in history. Gen. Keith
Alexander, the head of the U.S. Cyber Command,
said the U.S. military is unprepared for such
cyberattacks. “What we’re seeing in cyber is going
to continue, and it’s going to grow and it’s going to
get worse,” Alexander said after the attacks. “The
platform we have today is not defensible.”
For Conti, being put in charge of the Army’s
cybereducation effort is a natural evolution. At
46, he has a strong technology background and
has spent much of his Army career in signals
intelligence, that branch of military intelligence
focused on gathering strategic information from
signal sources such as the Internet. In 2006, after
completing his Ph.D., Conti returned to West
Point, where he took over a small cyberwarfare
research center. The Army, like other branches of

the military, was trying to mount a cohesive effort
to address cybersecurity in a time when threats
from hackers were growing significantly. Under
Conti, the tiny research center with five employees
was recently renamed the Army Cyber Institute
and is now morphing into a major initiative at
West Point with a broad mission of outreach,
advice, research and education. Conti said the
center needs to be 10 to 25 times bigger to reach
maximum effectiveness, and he expects the staff
to increase to 75 educators, researchers, scholars
and technical professionals within three years.
The Army’s cyberwarfare efforts come at an inflection point in world events. The military is in a
“draw down” era, with two major wars coming to
a close and a mandate to cut military spending. At
the same time, cultures are colliding in the Army.
The current generation of leaders comes from a
time when military strategy and leadership was
built upon a deep understanding of conventional
warfare and military engagement. Technical
types don’t have a stellar history of success in the
armed forces, generally relegated to a support role
without much hope of promotion to the highest
levels of leadership.
“Our senior leaders get the importance of this,”
Conti said. “The news comes up every day, and it
gets worse and worse. There is recognition up and
down the force of the implications, but the system

F I G H T I N G D I G I TA L W A R S
is built to grow the best combat Army generals out
there. In the Air Force, they create the best pilots;
in the Navy, the best ship captains. That is the
center of gravity for each of these organizations.
So there is a cultural change going on, but things
move slowly.”
Writing in the Small Wars Journal in 2012,
Conti, along with two co-authors, said, “There
is a reason why we don’t place Army officers in
charge of aircraft carriers. That being said, you go
to war with the Army you have, not the Army you
wish you had. We need to fight to understand the
domain of cyberspace and learn to effectively lead
cyberwarriors.”
Conti, who recalled using paper maps as recently as the first gulf war, has bridged the generations enough to have the patient understanding
this difficult transition will require.
“We have an inborn ability
to understand the laws of the
physical world,” the journal
article stated. “In order to shoot
an artillery round farther, just
add more powder; to provide
cover for protection against
bullets, hide behind a rock.
The laws of physics however are
counterintuitive in cyberspace.
In cyberspace, our understanding of the ‘laws of physics’
is turned on its head.
“Weapons can be reproduced instantly, ‘bullets’ travel at near the speed
of light, destroyed targets can be brought back
from the dead, and a seventeen-year-old can
command an army. As human beings we are at a
distinct disadvantage when thinking intuitively
about cyberwarfare.”
To that end, Conti wants to build an interdisciplinary approach to the institute at West Point.
Rather than focus on technology or policy, he is
intent on building “a bench of expertise across the
disciplines.” Scholars will be joined by cyberoperations analysts, historians of technology and military intelligence, psychologists who specialize in
security, social engineers, technologists, experts
on policy, law and ethics. “We knew that privacy
and civil liberties were important pre-Edward
Snowden,” Conti said. “We want a democracy, too,
a safer and more secure nation, but at the same
time preserving our liberties as well.”
Conti is also clear that education at West Point
will remain ensconced in traditional warfare

training and strategy. His job is to incorporate cyberspace capabilities. “There is very rich thought
on how to conduct warfare,” he said. “Some of
these strategies can be applied to cyberoperations
to varying degrees.” For example, if one considers
battlefield terrain—whoever controls that bridge
wins the battle—there is an application of such
strategy to cyberterrain.
As our world has become intractably dependent on digital systems, the threat of cyberwar has
grown more alarming. But unlike conventional
warfare, where the defender has a distinct advantage over the attacker, the cyberattacker has
all the advantages. The complexity of computer
systems offers those with evil intent the ability
to identify a single flaw that can be penetrated to
bring a system down or infiltrate highly classified
data. A certain type of cyberweaponry may be
used just once and then
never again, leaving a defender helpless in devising
a defense.
Conti believes the
goal is to grow highly
qualified cyberleaders
with a solid foundation
across technology as well
as policy, law, ethics and
psychology. “We have to
grow agile leaders who can
think strategically,” he said.
“They have to be aware that
the implications of their actions can have global
consequences. They have to understand that we
are building the airplane while flying it. And we
have to inspire them to pursue a lifetime of selfeducation in this area. Because to stand still is to
be left behind.”
Despite the lure of the riches of Silicon Valley,
technology savants are attracted to West Point,
Conti said. They tend to be well-rounded, as are
most cadets, and looking for a bigger challenge.
Conti recalled the awe and admiration with which
he held his commanding officer, Gen. Barry
McCaffrey, during Operation Desert Storm.
“He knew everything. He was a highly refined
person who had grown to the pinnacle of his
powers, and he was absolutely the right person
to lead that command,” Conti said. “I want to do
that here. I want to grow that same caliber person.
Nothing against the current commanders, but I
am trying to grow people better than us, better
than me. We owe it to them.” 

A CERTAIN TYPE
OF CYBERWEAPONRY
MAY BE USED JUST
ONCE AND THEN NEVER
AGAIN, LEAVING A
DEFENDER HELPLESS
IN DEVISING
A DEFENSE.